The past two weeks have been rife with “a year later” retrospectives on the final days before everything changed and the world went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, the pandemic has affected nearly every facet of life across the
globe. NCAN is focused in particular on how this year’s FAFSA completion trend will compare to last year’s.
The chart below shows the year-over-year percent change in FAFSA completions for the high school class of 2020 from the end of January to the end of June. From March 13 to June 26, the class of 2020 dropped 3.9 percentage points compared to the previous
year, representing nearly 81,000 fewer FAFSA completions.
March 13 is upon us again. After a year of fear, uncertainty, and loss, America may be turning a hopeful corner thanks to medical breakthroughs that have produced a bevy of effective vaccines.
The class of 2021’s FAFSA completion cycle has somewhat mirrored that hopeful turnaround. This year’s cycle opened with an unthinkable plummet. Completions bottomed out at the end of November at nearly -17% relative to last year. Since then, there has
been a steady, inexorable climb; as of March 5, the completion deficit has almost halved and stands at -9.1%. To be clear, this is still a catastrophic decrease; over 162,000 fewer students from the class of 2020 have completed a FAFSA through early
March compared to this time last year.
Unfortunately and predictably, FAFSA completion deficits are inequitably distributed. Public high schools with higher concentrations of students from low-income backgrounds and students of color are seeing much steeper FAFSA completion declines. Students
from rural places, small towns, and cities have also seen steeper decreases than their suburban counterparts.
March 13 kicks off an interesting, unprecedented period for FAFSA completion trends. As seen above, the class of 2020 began its descent on March 13, but the class of 2021 will likely continue its slow rise. It’s too much to hope for that these two trends
would intersect; that is, it’s very unlikely that the class of 2021’s FAFSA completion growth accelerates so much that more current seniors wind up completing a FAFSA than did last year. What is much more likely is that the gap between the two classes
closes to some extent. Where the class of 2021 winds up by that June 30 milestone is of great interest to practitioners and policymakers, but it should interest the public as well.
NCAN has diligently documented struggling students’ stories over the past year and the strategies that members and the field have employed to help them succeed. Community-based organizations, K-12 districts and schools, and all manner of other stakeholders
with an interest in students’ postsecondary outcomes have engaged in Herculean efforts to keep students on a postsecondary pathway.
Despite those efforts, postsecondary enrollment for the high school class of 2020 declined by an estimated 22% overall with
much steeper declines among students from low-income and high-minority high schools. Keeping in mind that this decline came on the heels of a 4.2% decline in FAFSA completion by the class of 2020, the current 9.1% deficit facing the class of 2021
could spell catastrophe. After all, this fall will hopefully look much more normal, but students need to complete college-going milestones now to stay on track to make a postsecondary transition. There is no guarantee that those who fall off a pathway
now will hop back onto one this summer or fall.
NCAN will continue to document high school FAFSA completion trends at the Form Your Future FAFSA Tracker. This interactive platform displays data at the national, state, city, district, and school
levels. The Tracker gets updated each Friday.
The next four to six weeks will offer a much clearer picture of whether the class of 2021 will see attrition equaling or exceeding those of the class of 2020. Either way, advocates and policymakers need to keep student outcomes front and center as significant
work remains to ensure postsecondary transitions and/or reconnect students with a postsecondary pathway.
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